PARCA surveys Alabama for opinions on school funding, prison reform and Medicaid expansion

Two-thirds of those who participated in a Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama survey last month said they believe too little is spent on public education.

About the same number said the money that does go to public schools is not spent properly.

On prison reform, rehabilitation efforts were a more popular solution to overcrowding than new prisons.

And slightly more than half of respondents favored accepting federal funds to expand Medicaid, although the idea was unpopular with Republicans in the survey.

PARCA, a nonprofit research organization whose stated mission is to provide nonpartisan information to improve state and local government, released the results today of a survey on education, prisons and Medicaid.

Those will be among the dominant issues when the Legislature convenes March 3.

The results were drawn from a statewide random sample of 592 Alabamians surveyed by phone Jan. 5-21.

The results were weighted by race and gender to match state demographics. The margin of error was plus or minus 4.03 percent.

Randolph Horn, a political science professor at Samford University and longtime pollster, directed the survey.

Horn said responses to the questions on education funding were similar to responses in PARCA surveys in previous years.

Sixty-seven percent said too little money was being spent on education. Twenty percent said enough is being spent, and 5.5 percent said too much is being spent.

Only 22 percent thought education money was being spent properly, while 64 percent thought it was not.

Horn said the survey and previous ones show there is no dominant reason that people think education dollars are not properly spent. One factor in that perception is that parents are often asked to pitch in and help buy classroom supplies, he said.

Seventy-three percent of respondents to the survey said the state should spend more on classroom supplies.

Seventy-one percent said the state should spend more on classroom technology, 70 percent said the state should spend more on teacher salaries and 67 percent said the state should spend more to hire more teachers.

The questions about the prison system and about Medicaid were new to PARCA's surveys, Horn said.

Those two programs will be important topics at the State House this year.

Alabama's General Fund, the main source of state dollars for many non-education services, faces a shortfall projected at $250 million or more next year.

Medicaid is the largest consumer of General Fund dollars, while prisons rank second.

Prisons are filled to almost twice their capacity, and a Prison Reform Task Force plans to propose legislation to begin what is expected to be a long-range strategy to change how offenders are sentenced and supervised.

Respondents to the survey were asked to rate the effectiveness of the corrections system on a scale of 1-10.

When it comes to protecting the public and punishing offenders, they gave the system middling scores, between 5 and 6.

But they gave the system lower marks, an average of 3.75, in rehabilitating offenders.

Eighty percent of respondents said they would support investing in rehabilitation so inmates don't return to prison, while 76 percent supported finding safe ways to move more nonviolent inmates back to the community.

Fewer respondents, 51 percent, supported building new prisons.

The Prison Reform Task Force is considering a set of recommendations that include hiring more parole officers, expanding drug treatment programs, requiring a period of supervision after release from prison and diverting low-level felons from prison.

Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, the chairman of the task force, has also said that part of the solution will have to be more prison space, although not necessarily new prisons.

Ward said in an email that he believes the survey results reinforce what is the public perception of the best methods to protect public safety.

"I believe this shows we are on the right paths both in providing long term solutions to the corrections system but also a desire to not overburden the citizens of Alabama with a large increase in taxes for expensive new prison construction," Ward said in an email.

Five of the survey questions were about Medicaid. About 1 million people in Alabama are eligible for Medicaid, more than one-fifth of the population.

Gov. Robert Bentley has opposed expanding Medicaid eligibility as allowed under the Affordable Care Act, although since his reelection he has said he is open to the idea of seeking a federal block grant to expand coverage.